Not in a hurry.

Everyone thinks that I'm in a hurry to move out. Am I? I don't think so... The major benefit to moving out will be not having to run around all the time all over the place, carting a bag of stuff back and forth between Renton and the Udistrict. And however much people are telling me to "relax" and not be in a hurry, the more I think that there IS something of a deadline--Steven's lease is up in August, and since this is the first time I'm actually MOVING OUT moving out (not just going to a dorm room and leaving half of my stuff at home), YEAH, I want to be prepared and have time to get my stuff organized. I'm sorry that I didn't want to wait till the last three weeks of August to find a place and go through the turmoil of being under a far more intense time crunch. I absolutely refuse to subscribe to the notion that I'm experiencing some kind of internal desire to distance myself from my parents as soon as possible. My dad and mom seem to think that its my instincts kicking into full gear, and that I am demonstrating a "very common behavior in a young person who is ready to move on." Consider the following: I am now 22 years old. My parents got married when they were 19 and 20. Granted, it's a different world now, but I feel like there's a certain measure of guilt that I'm carrying around on my shoulders. I know my dad is joking around with the pouty lip and stuff, but it really gets to me, because then I start wondering if I am being selfish, if I should stay at home as long as possible. I love my parents. And I start to think, how much longer are they really going to be around? 20 years? 30? 50? I don't know why I have such morbid thoughts as these, but I sometimes think about how I'll be able to live without the thought that my parents will always be there. I wish that day would never come. I sort of feel like I'm leaving them as anyone naturally leaves their home eventually, but I'm experiencing this disturbing sense of "when will they be leaving me? And will it be for good?" None of my family is in the greatest of health (including myself) which makes me even more worried. I love spending time with my dad and I don't want that special daddy-daughter relationship that we have developed over the years to fade just because I'm living in a different place. I guess it'll be up to me (and us) to maintain it. Of course I'm scared. I don't know how things will work out, and I am really, really terrified of arriving at that day when mom and dad aren't around anymore. I am tearing up as I write this, even thinking about it. Even though we go through life building relationships and creating families, we are ultimately and inevitably alone. My absolute greatest fear is not death itself, but that I won't be able to see or be with the people I love when I die. I just hope and hope and hope that we'll all be together again--that our existence in this Universe is not just some minuscule chance, but that we have some purpose, and that everything won't just fade to blackness. A science teacher once explained the cycle of humankind's existence in a class I was taking in completely non-spiritual terms. There were billions and billions of years... and then there was you...and there will be billions and billions of more years after you. In essence, the death of the soul. I'm freaking myself out. I need to stop for now.